Autor: Michael Würzelberger

The Minoritenkirche (Friars Minor Conventual Church) in downtown Vienna, remarkable in many respects, houses a replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s „The Last Supper,“ probably the world’s most famous wall fresco, made by the Roman mosaic artist Giacomo Raffaelli starting in 1805/06.

Originally commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Louvre Museum, the Roman mosaic was also intended to serve as a safeguard for the original, already in poor condition, in the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan from 1497.

After the fall of Napoleon, Emperor Franz II/I originally purchased the 9.2×4.5m work for the Belvedere. Due to its size, it was installed in the Minorite Church above the Cenacolo side altar and inaugurated in 1847. The world’s largest reproduction of the 20-ton mural on twelve 24cm thick stone slabs between 2 inscriptions captivates to this day by the detailed execution and high artistic quality.

Opened in 1932, the Werkbundsiedlung in the 13th district Hietzing – consisting today of 64 small houses designed by 30 architects and female architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky – was created on the initiative of Josef Frank, based on the model of a similar settlement built a few years earlier in Stuttgart.

The direct juxtaposition of the works of important Austrian and foreign architects of the interwar period is particularly appealing. Despite the high level of visitor interest and positive media coverage, only 14 houses could be sold as planned; the rest were rented out and then turned over to the city administration during the Nazi period.

After renovations in the 1980s and 2010s, the experimental and now listed housing estate stands for undogmatic functionality and spaciousness in the smallest space of early architectural modernism.

Image 1: André Lurçat
Image 2: Josef Hoffmann – Image 3: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
Image 4: Oswald Haerdtl – Image 5: Gerrit Rietveld
Image 6: Adolf Loos – Image 7: Josef Frank

The Roman Catholic Karl Borromäus Church in the Central Cemetery (2nd gate) in Simmering, directly behind the Federal President’s Crypt built 40 years later, was completed in 1911 according to plans by the architect Max Hegele. In addition to the cemetery church built in Art Nouveau style, which was already planned when the cemetery was opened in 1874, Hegele also planned the main portal and the burial halls.

The former Dr. Karl Lueger Memorial Church, which was reopened in 2000 in the course of a general renovation, was probably renamed because of the anti-Semitic views of the former mayor, who had a tomb built under the main altar in the course of its construction.

The striking, centrally domed rotunda is strongly reminiscent of the Otto Wagner Church at Steinhof, who was himself on the jury evaluating the cemetery buildings put out to tender and was thus familiar with Hegeles‘ plans of 1899.

The rondeau of the Federal President’s Crypt in the chapel courtyard in front of the church is the burial place of the Federal Presidents of the Second Republic. In the centre is a stone sarcophagus with the Federal Coat of Arms.

The 19-part figure group „Passanten“ (Passers-by) from 1985 on the Danube Island between Brigittenauer Brücke and Reichsbrücke consists of iron and steel sculptures of unclothed human figures in various poses.

The Viennese Prof. Herbert Traub, graduate of the Akad. d. bild. Künste and later himself a professor at the University of Haifa and Stuttgart, is responsible for the design. The installation probably also recalls his many years of work as a stage designer for theatre and film and, of course, the summer bathing paradise on the Danube Island.

In the center of the Volksgarten on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, the Swiss-Austrian court architect Peter von Nobile built the approximately 14x25m large classical Theseus Temple in 1823. The crypt of the building, which was planned in the type of a ring hall temple (peripteros) with 6×10 columns, was to serve as a place for the sculptures of the imperial collection of antiquities, especially for the Theseus group designed by Antonio Canova.

Due to the construction on the area of the former moat, the foundations of the catacombs had to reach deep down, but soon proved to be too wet, so that the sculptures were later taken away. Today, the Theseus figure is located in the intermediate landing of the main staircase in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

After extensive renovation in the 2000s, the temple now serves as an exhibition space and can also be accessed barrier-free. The bronze figure of a youthful athlete by Josef Müllner placed in front of it was ceremoniously unveiled in 1923 and was considered a sign of life for Austrian sports.

The winged Lion of Saint Mark, based on a Venetian model, was first erected in 1869 in the magnificent South Station by Wilhelm Flattich together with 7 other lions on the edge of the roof. Since 2014, it can now also be seen again in the central station in restored condition as a landmark at the main entrance.

The figures, made by sculptor Franz Melnitzky, were probably an allusion to Austria’s claim to Venice, which had fallen to Austria at the Congress of Vienna as the „Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom“, but then had to be ceded again in the course of the Italian unification movement in 1866. During WWII, the South and East Stations were then severely damaged, six of the eight Lions of Saint Mark were destroyed. In the new building of the now structurally merged stations, completed in 1960, one of the Lion of Saint Mark was again presented in the lower ticket hall as a reminiscence of the times when Austria still extended to the Adriatic. The second undestroyed Lion of Saint Mark can be found today near the former Kaiserbahnhof in Laxenburg.

On Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, directly next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, there is today the house „Zum goldenen Becher“ from 1883, built according to the plans of the Austrian Arch. Alexander Wielemans of Monteforte in the late historicist style. Wielemans was also responsible for the Palace of Justice in Vienna and the City Hall in Graz.

The name of the residential and commercial building in old German forms derives from a house sign of the previous building, a wrought iron grille with a cup, located above the front gate. The background for this was possibly the Corpus Christi procession in 1549, during which a Protestant baker’s boy named Johann Hayn is said to have snatched the monstrance from the priest and was then burned as punishment. The reigning king and later emperor Ferdinand I would have had a column with a monstrance erected at the site.

Despite damages during WWII, rich facade paintings with allegorical figures, portraits of emperors and verses on the history of the house and the city can still be seen between the round-arched windows, an embellished floor with a lattice balcony on consoles and partly also Ionic red marble columns.

The listed Hotel Daniel on Gürtelstraße in the 3rd district near the Belvedere from 1962 was originally built as an office building for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La-Roche and designed by the Austrian/Swiss architect duo Georg Lippert and Roland Rohn.

In the course of the takeover by the hotel operator and the renovation of the building with the curtain-wall style used for the first time in Austria to create the striking green glass facade in 2011, a work of art by the successful Austrian artist Erwin Wurm in the form of a curved sailboat called „Misconceivable“ was also installed on the roof.

The installation of the stranded airship, originally planned for only 4 years, perhaps also references Vienna’s location by the sea until a few million years ago.

One of the showpieces of the excellent Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer in the Hofburg is undoubtedly the so-called „Adlergarnitur“ from 1547, which the later Emperor Ferdinand I had made for his son, Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol. The name derives from the gilded eagles decorated on the surface, the heraldic animals of old Austria.

The knightly luxury armor, which was usually worn for representation purposes at tournaments, consists of 87 individual parts that can be combined as a modular system to 12 different armors for different occasions (on horseback, on foot, for field, tournament, foot combat, etc..). The „sporting equipment“, elegant due to its excellent execution and decoration, was created by the Innsbruck plater Jörg Seusenhofer.

To produce it, iron was fire-gilded, framed in black, engraved and rivet heads were made of brass. The considerable cost was equivalent to 12 years‘ salary of a high court official. The field armor is the largest preserved of its kind and, through illustration in the inventory of Archduke Ferdinand II, also the best documented.

The Austrian architect and well-known draftsman „Ironimus“ Gustav Peichl is responsible for the planning of the 96m high trade fair tower in Leopoldstadt, which was erected in 2003. The trademark of Messe Wien is also considered a reminiscence of the Mannesmann Tower*, which was located there until 1987 and was a gift from the Düsseldorf company of the same name.

Built on parts of the site of the 1921 World’s Fair in the Prater, the Vienna Trade Fair was intended to improve the dismal economic situation after WWI. Despite complete destruction during WWII, the annual early and autumn fairs were very soon well attended again. In the course of the division of the fairgrounds, the current exhibition and congress center was built at the beginning of the 20th century, and to the south, among others, the WU campus.

*Fig. 2: Official Gazette of the City of Vienna, Vienna Library, 1956